It’s 10am on a Wednesday morning and I’m bonding with the global icon that is Caroline Hirons over aches and pains. One of the world’s most influential figures in the beauty industry and the woman behind multi-million skincare brand Skin Rocks, Caroline is known for her unapologetic observations and unfiltered honesty, which she happily showcases for me from the get-go.
‘Mate, I wish I could say I was better,’ she replies, wincing slightly when I ask how she is. ‘I’ve got the worst blasted backache. You know when you’re in pain and it makes you physically grumpy?’
Oh, do I what. At 46, deep in the hormonal purgatory of perimenopause and having made the ill-advised decision to train for a marathon, my own body has begun lodging formal complaints, which I mention. ‘Lunatic,’ she says playfully. I like her already.
Caroline is 56 – 57 in July – yet she looks closer to my age than I do. Her famous skin is immaculate: plump, luminous and glowing with health. ‘If my skin wasn’t great, I’d be in trouble. It wouldn’t say much for my business model, would it?’ she laughs, referring of course to her award-winning beauty empire, which is growing exponentially.
Caroline Hirons, 56, has immaculate skin (Picture: Evan Doherty)
She’s just launched her Skin Rocks Pro project, offering training, education and curated facials for salons and beauty professionals worldwide.
When prompted, Caroline lists her seven-step morning skincare routine with brisk efficiency, and while I’m impressed, I note that even putting on moisturiser some mornings is a chore for my fatigued self. She eyes me sympathetically. ‘Perimenopause is brutal,’ she notes. ‘I didn’t know what was going on. I thought I was just putting on weight and losing my mind. My brain was fudge. You’re so tired and I don’t think you’re in any frame of mind to do anything major during those years. But then when you come out of it, you get clarity.’
Caroline Hirons says she's had 'three pretty s*** years' (Picture: Evan Doherty)
She adds that the huge hormonal storm was up there with one of the worst times of her life. ‘When you’re through the other side, life is a lot easier,’ she muses, and I know she’s not just talking about navigating hormones.
‘Yeah, I’ve had three pretty s*** years, to be honest – my mum dying, perimenopause, Jim and I separating,’ she reflects. In January, Caroline announced that herself and singer/songwriter Jim, her husband of 32 years and the father of her four children, had separated, and today, she affirms that the family are in a good place.
‘To be honest, I think we’re faring better than most because all of our kids are grown so we’ve been able to have space that you need when you’re going through that,’ she says carefully. ‘I don’t have to ever worry about visitation and custody – our youngest is 21 – so I don’t have any of that s*** that many other other poor women have to deal with. When we talk, we talk on text, and it’s very amicable.
‘I’ve got two children still at home and it’s the family base and they’re in and out, you know. They still see Jim and he comes and goes. What’s still important is that we spent nearly four decades together and we don’t have to worry about where they’re going to go for Christmas, what they’re going to do at Easter. That would tear me apart. Then I can see how I would want to kill him on a weekly basis,’ she smiles wryly.
‘We communicate about finances and logistics and that’s it. It’s easy because there’s no animosity. It’s just, it is what it is. You just try and do the best you can for your family. You’re still a family, you just look different.
‘I’m not interested in going off to someone else, he’s not interested in going off to someone else,’ says Caroline, whose says that her marriage break-up was the complete opposite of any type of high conflict or toxicity. It wasn’t a sudden implosion, it was a decision that the family have been comfortable with for some time.
Caroline says of the reaction to her news: 'Can you all calm down?' (Picture: Evan Doherty)
‘I’m in a much better position than a lot of people I know are,’ she continues. ‘It wasn’t new information to my family or my kids or my loved ones. So we were just like, yeah, can you all calm down?’ says Caroline of the online fervoured reaction to her news.
‘It’s not happening to you. It happened to us and it was a while ago and we’re cool. Get on with your lives. Nothing to see here, you know, move along,’ says the ‘almost borderline psychotically optimistic’ Caroline, who is also a deeply pragmatic person.
‘Someone did ask if we were consciously uncoupling? I said, no, we’re not w****rs, come on,’ she laughs. ‘I’ve got no reason or energy for animosity. Obviously, in the initial days, I’m not going to say it was easy, but I immediately had the thought process of, I’m a child of divorce in the 1980s, and I never wanted that type of narrative.
‘I’m 56, so I’ll be dead soon, I haven’t got the energy. I’m certainly never going to speak badly about the man who is the father of my children. If I’m going to be angry, I’ve got plenty of other people who deserve anger more than what will always be the biggest part of my life. Why would I want to be raging against that? The four best things on God’s green earth came from our relationship,’ she says, of their children Ben, Dan, Ava and Max.
‘I just said to them, “look, your dad is your dad. He’s the love of my life. I’m not looking for a new love of my life. I’m not changing my name. He will always be your dad. And you may have to cut me some grace sometimes. You might hear me say the odd thing like you do as a normal person where you’re just like, oh, whatever,”’ she says.
I know exactly what she means, the generic frustration that can come post-split.
‘Now, I’m lucky in that Jim is not a w****r. I’ve experienced my friends with young children in very different circumstances, and I can feel the rage. But for us, I think it’s nice to show to the world that actually, you live the best part of your lives with each other, so why have animosity?
‘Unless, of course, there’s extenuating circumstances – I’m not suggesting for a second that you stay friends with someone who’s abused you or similar, god no.’
Caroline Hirons says of her grandchildren: 'I'm obsessed'.
In fact, Caroline, who has over 700,000 followers on her Instagram account, says that she’s inundated with similar stories from women her age navigating similar circumstances. ‘I’ve had so many women in my DMs... you know, there’s a reason that my demographic is the highest demographic for divorce,’ she says. ‘I think postmenopausal women get to a certain point and you’re just like, is this all I want for the rest of my life?’
Among the challenges of the last few years, she’s had some major highlights too. ‘Professionally, the business is flying,’ she says. ‘Then there’s the grandchildren...’ Caroline’s eyes light up at the very word. ‘I’m obsessed. It’s a different level. Everyone thinks I’m joking, but I looked into it scientifically. It’s all the maternal love amplified and intensified, all the good stuff.’
She’s currently a grandmother of two with another on the way, following the news that her influencer daughter Ava is expecting a baby with former Love Island star Zach Noble. ‘I just want to eat them,’ she laughs. ‘I saw the babies last weekend and I was like, “come here, I’m going to bite you”. And the little one goes, “Nanny, don’t bite me”. My grandchildren are very much all I think about when I think about the future. They’re obsessed with me and I’m obsessed with them. When you’re a grandparent, you’ve seen it all and nothing really fazes you.
‘So yeah, you could say post-menopausal, you’re kind of living the dream, as you don’t give a f*** what anyone thinks about you,’ she reflects when I ask her how she feels about women and ageing. ‘The word I’d like removed permanently from the vernacular is “gracefully”. Ageing gracefully. What does that even mean?
‘No one ever says that about men. No one says George Clooney’s ageing gracefully. Do you think I have to behave like a lady? You know, I always think of Helen Mirren when she turned 70 and was asked do you have any regrets? And she went, “yes, I wish I told far more people to f*** off”,’ she says, her eyes flashing.
‘Does that mean you let yourself go grey, you let yourself have no hormones, so your health suffers, so the health of everyone around you suffers? Because trust me, if the matriarch is not healthy, you’re all going to suffer,’ she says in what I definitely detect as a warning.
This resistance extends to aesthetic treatments, where you get the sense that she believes the real danger is not Botox, but judgment. ‘Why would anyone care what anyone else does to their face?’ she says. ‘If someone wants a tweakment to feel fresher, let them. I have no plans to go in for a Kris Jenner facelift but she looks phenomenal. That is some bloody good work.’
As a society, Caroline feels we should be careful in condemning something like tweakments for women as she sees beauty and bodily autonomy as part of the same continuum of choice.
‘Having any opinion over what anyone does with their body leads me directly to a woman’s right to choose, because that’s coming down the line from the States with someone like [Nigel] Farage over here,’ muses Caroline, who has Limerick roots and remembers fondly being in Dublin in 2018 when a Repeal march was happening and proudly donning a campaigning jumper.
‘There is no way I’m leaving this earth with my granddaughters having fewer rights than I had. I’ll go to jail. I’ve said it. I can afford protection and everyone would have great skin,’ she says, only half-joking.
‘If you come for women’s rights, there are going to be a lot of grandmothers who will be having none of it. Absolutely not a chance in hell. So any politician who thinks that women aren’t watching you when you don’t speak up for our rights, be aware, babe. Be aware.
‘We don’t have these discussions about men. Name one medical procedure a man needs legal permission for. It doesn’t exist. Why would we let men have vasectomies? That’s also preventing life – if you want to go down the road, let’s go down the road. But I’m not here for any kind of legislation over women and that to me starts with leaving women alone.’
She pauses for a second, a smile playing on her face. ‘There’s a great line about how men should be grateful that most women just want equality and not revenge. That’s very much where I’m at. Can you tell I’ve got backache?’ she asks, grinning.
‘I have a very busy brain, sometimes I just have to shut down, I literally have to shut the computer down and I lie on the sofa, make a cup of tea and put on the TV. It’s the equivalent of plugging myself out,’ she says, when I ask her how she relaxes.
She also loves gigs – she’s going to Raye at London’s O2 next week. ‘Look, I’d go to gigs every night if I could but I’m past that,’ she says, and I concur. ‘I used to go to the gym three times a week. It’s harder now, I just don’t have the love for it.
‘But I’m active anyway. I hardly ever sit still. When I do, I get backaches,’ she grimaces, her eyes in mock roll.
‘I’m going to go now and do some stretching. I think a pigeon pose might help this back,’ she says.
I just know this powerhouse won’t be on the floor for too long.
Visit Caroline Hirons’ brand Skin Rocks at SkinRocks.com.
